Drew Dowdell

Pour one out for my grandmother who passed away Monday evening after a long hospice stay. She passed peacefully and pain free in her sleep. If you trace things back far enough, she is a big contributor to me being here on Cheers and Gears and thus C&G still existing. It was her and her 1979 Olds Custom Cruiser Diesel like the one below that got me into cars around the age of three. At three, it was my job to tell her when the Wait To Start Light went out so the could start the car and I got to press the garage door opener buttons.

What the heck is an Urban SUV?

I'm not so sure about the tail lights on the Lyriq, but on the Vistiq, they work.

If the Lyriq's proportions are off, then so are all of the "crossover coupes" from BMW, Mercedes, Audi, and Acura.

Unlikely. Even in a Tesla Plaid you have to put it in Ludicrous mode and the Lucid Air Grand Touring makes you put it in the top model also to get that acceleration. Genesis and the V-Series just make it an easier to access dedicated button

I like how it has a V button, so you can drive it normally most of the time and press the V button when you need someone in your rearview mirror. The upper models of the Genesis GV60 has this and it is a ridiculous kick in the pants even at a much lower max power rating.

We now also have a status monitoring page. https://status.cheersandgears.com/ This is independent of our web server and will let you know if things are out of whack and I can put a status message there if we're down. There is a link at the bottom right of the page if you ever forget.

I saw a BMW X2 M@#$@#%-whatever the other day and thought the exact same thing. Not sporty looking unless you consider using old Pontiac Grand Am body cladding as sporty. But Americans are addicted to tall hatchbacks Sport Activity Vehicles.... so it is what it is.

The current 2.0T debuted in the XT4 and then went to Buick..... Not that GM has divisional engines anymore since the Northstar went out to pasture. I'm not a big fan of the Lyriq styling, but I think this one is out of the park good. It can be parked proudly next to a high-zoot Range Rover and looks much better than the EQE SUV. As far as luxury EV SUVs out there, I think, at least in appearance, the Vistiq is the new king.

Albert made me a checkerboard cake and it was delicious.

All of this. Though the second gen CTS did gain a lot of weight in roughly the same footprint and wasn't as nimble. This is when the CTS started chasing the 5-series more seriously and had the interior to do that. Cadillac did this because they knew the ATS was coming. Unfortunately, the CTS grew in size even more for the 3rd generation, and while it did get some nimbleness back, it is nearly the size of the 300C. The ATS was a fantastic vehicle for sporty driving and if I were single, I'd look at a Turbo-4 coupe with a manual, but they are just too small for more than 2 people.

For storage, Wasabi S3 is a competitor to Amazon S3 at significantly lower price. We've been using it here for photo storage for more than a year, but I got the backups copying to it now also.

We now have working backups again, and they run daily, and are transferred to Wasabi off-site storage automatigically

Of course there's this CTS 3.6 with a manual and low milage on Auto Trader right now..... taunting me.

The Costco parking lot. I like the 300C and I like the Avalanche, but sometimes navigating them around in traffic and parking lots is a bear. The 300C isn't even drastically larger than the CTS, but the CTS was much more nimble and had a very tight turning radius. It was also ~3,400 lbs, 200 lbs lighter than a base 2025 3-series. It was just light and nimble, but every bit as comfortable on the highway as the 300C is. It's a shame that most of that generation have been trashed. Put a nice CarPlay unit in one and I'd be happy.

Anyone have a weird longing for a car they sold or traded a while ago? I don't mean something that got wrecked or stolen, that was out of your control. Just a car that you traded/sold but now regret doing that? That hit me hard today for my 2004 CTS.

Thank you very much. For my birthday last year I got a gift card for a spa day package which I booked for my birthday this year. So I spent the day yesterday getting a facial and a massage and it was fantastic. Little did I know when I booked it how needed it would be.

The redundancy isn't there yet. I have a bunch of other websites to restore. But it will be the first thing done when I'm done with those.

effing hell...... and nearly completely losing the C&G database wasn't even the worst thing to happen this week.

That was always the deal from the start at least for VW. The only addition is that Scout will have access to it. VW group being the ownership mess that they are, Scout having access to the tech was never a given.

It does. E85 is a natural fuel system cleaner. Since I run E85 most of the time and Top Tier all other times, the inside of my engine is probably squeaky clean. The only downside is that it turns your oil black really quick. It's not harmful, but it makes it impossible to visually check the oil's condition. I change with synthetic every 5k, so I'm not worried.

I won't go on weekends if I can help it. I go early or mid-week and never have to wait. A 20-30 cent a gallon difference in price adds up when filling 27 gallons. The only other station I use is the Speedway also nearby because they've been having HUGE discounts on E85 lately and even with the hit to my MPGs, I make out better. I've paid as little as $2.59 a gallon for E85 while Costco is $3.25 for regular. I only take a 1 mpg hit on the highway and 3-4 mpg city.

No. Third space has a specific definition and something like a Costco doesn't meet that as its primary purpose is retail. Besides, Pacific Northwest was once the land of coffee shops, very much inside the definition of third space. Third Spaces in the U.S. have been disappearing, dramatically so since Covid. Sociological experts are studying this as part of the greater issue of isolation that has been happening here.

The easiest way to remember what a third space is: A Third Space is a place to be, not a place to go. When I was in college there was a chain of coffee shops and restaurants based on the characters from A Christmas Carol. Ebenezer's was a fantastic coffee shop with lots of room. It had big couches, a nice gas fire in the winter, good basic foods, quiet booths to work. Fezziwig's was a restaurant done up like an old English pub with aged wood beams and English pub fare (it still exists in principle today but now it's a glorified TGI Fridays), and Cratchet's was a small sandwich shop. Ebenezer's was my favorite. It's gone from how I remember it but I've often thought if I won the Powerball, I would create a coffee chain (ironically, since I don't drink it) that was very much a 3rd space place like Ebenezer's... I'd even steal the name and call it Ebenezers Counting House instead, and fit it out with fireplaces, cozy corners, and gigabit wifi.

That's not really the definition of a 3rd space. Most people don't go to Costco to hang out and meet friends. The definition of a 3rd space is a place for people to go and gather for social interaction that is not their home nor work. In the UK, this might be the local pub. In the US, it might be a coffee shop, bar, or even the YMCA. Retail shopping like Costco and a grocery store doesn't really count as a third space because it's not a social thing.